Bourbon And Bad Ideas
by Sherbert20111
Summary: Gibbs is back, or is he? Maybe he needs one last push. Director Shepard is just the person to make it happen. Follows the end of 'Escaped.' s4e2. Jibbs.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: CBS owns these characters. FF has no genre for smut. Neither of these things are with in my control...

_"__When people are this good at something, they don't just give it up." She snapped her mouth shut after speaking, afraid that she had already gone too far and overplayed her hand._

Director of NCIS, Jenifer Shepard stood over the chair where Leroy Jethro Gibbs slouched in a corner of his basement. She wore what Gibbs famously referred to as her ass-kissing suit complete with matching five inch heels.

In comparison, he was dressed in clothes such a far cry from his usual spruce self, she could almost have passed him on the street. Almost. There was something in the way that he bathed himself in stillness, or the way he moved, when he moved, that automatically drew her eye. She was tuned to him in a way she chose it best to ignore for the better part of the time since her return to home ground and the Director's chair.

He hadn't replied, not that she had really expected him to. They hadn't had much of a conversation since the case drew to a close bar the paperwork. Fornell had been reunited with his daughter Emily, the Petty Officer Derrick Paulson had been exonerated and a man who had been a father figure to the young Petty Officer, Mickey Stokes, had been led away in handcuffs. Gibbs hadn't commented on Shepard diverting his retirement paperwork yet either, it was just another example of how far she was prepared to bend the line for him. Right now, she was going to do it all over again on a very personal level, if that was what it took to keep him.

She stared down into piercing blue eyes that tightened into an unbearable expression of loss. She allowed herself to barely ruffle his hair with her fingertips, seeing his expression segue into something softer. He lent into her touch imperceptibly.

"What are you really here for, Jen?" he asked quietly.

She tilted her head fractionally to the side and back again, in their universal language of '_you know why, and if you don't I'm not going to spell it out. Predict, not react_.' She wasn't above using his rules against him. When it worked, it was a beautiful, personal thing, exclusive to the pair of them and their shared history. To outsiders, it looked like they conversed using nothing more that vibrations in the air, until the occasional miscommunication broke out into open warfare and everybody took cover without exception.

She had gotten ahead of him in seniority and had the sense that he alternately admired and despised her for it. The Director's desk was never something he coveted, until she sat behind it. She let her fingers slip to cup his cheek, feeling the unfamiliar texture of his beard. Time off had put colour back in his cheeks, but he had let go the iron control over his appearance that was so familiar and comforting to her. Gibbs had always looked the same, pristine and ready for anything, come hell or high water. He had always been her rock in times of trouble, and often enough, she, herself had been the trouble.

His eyelids drooped a little and he turned his head to place the softest kiss on the inside of her wrist. It made her gaze drop to his mouth. She remembered that, and his hands, his hands more than anything from an encounter in a rest room in Marseilles. Colour crept clear of her collar. In the instant she felt herself start to pull away, she felt him clasp her wrist gently, not enough to stop her if she wanted to go, but enough to make her pause. Her pulse hammered sharply in the base of her throat, forcing her to take a shaky breath. It was going to work. If she could hold her course.

She was well aware of the danger that would come with this course of action. She would put him in harm's way without fully apprising him of the risks. Risks which she had taken upon herself to bear in isolation since their first joint mission in France, because she felt responsible. She_ was_ responsible, for letting a mark escape with their life. _Her_ life.

A moment of weakness had been all it took. Distance had been the only protection she could offer Gibbs at the time. It was different now. What she was doing tonight was also a weakness of a sort she reminded herself, however calculating she thought she might be being.

"Did you lock my front door?" he grated.

The briefest smile flickered across her face. It sounded so much more innocuous than '_are you staying?_'

"What if I did?" she asked with a slight raise of her eyebrows.

He shrugged noncommittally, but his grip tightened just a little and his eyes slid past her to the uncapped bottle of spirits the other side of the room.

"Drink?" he offered amiably.

"Bourbon?" she queried darkly and got a half smile in reply.

She held herself steady as he pulled himself upright, using her as a lever in name only. He never dropped her gaze, or her wrist, rising to crowd her personal space when she refused to step back. He tilted his head back to look down his nose at her. In the heels she wore to the Hill, he was only inches taller than she was.

She could feel her chin go up in a misguided defensive gesture. There was no real danger here past what she already knew might happen, and that would be by her own hand. They had been at this long enough for him to know she wasn't going to be cowed by his proximity and she well knew he wouldn't give ground until it suited him.

"Nice suit," he ground out, finally dropping her wrist and using both hands on her shoulders to guide her to one side. She went easily enough, watching him step around the skeletal bones of a keel resting on a pair of trestles. If she had a mind to put a hand to the timber, she knew she would find the planks sanded as smooth as satin. She scanned the space as an indicator of his state of mind.

There wasn't a power tool in the place. The only sign of electricity was from the jerry rigged spotlights that hung haphazardly above the ribs of the boat. Counter tops were scattered with hand tools in orderly disarray and she watched with interest when Gibbs upended a small jar of oddments and huffed briskly into the empty glass.

He cast a glance back at her, raising her eyebrows as if to say, '_best I can do_.' She gave him an infinitesimal nod. He turned back to address the bottle, but not before she saw his teeth sink into his lower lip to keep hold of a smile in that could have been shared.

"Not all of us can do our day jobs in a polo shirt and jeans," she goaded lightly, referring to the clothes he wore when he stormed into her office at the start of the case. She had been expecting him - it hadn't taken much to convince Fornell Gibbs was his best option.

"Still carry a knife," he paused, scooping up her makeshift glass and his own refilled. "Jen?"

"Old habits are hard to break," she replied evenly.

"Not that hard," he shot back.

"Don't you believe it," she snapped, taking his accusation as referring to him leaving Europe without her, years previously. She had had a guilty conscience, a lead on a notorious arms dealer with links to her Father's death and an opportunity to step up a rung on the political ladder. She had taken it, without consulting him first and to all outward appearances, without looking back.

He shrugged. "Didn't feel like it at the time."

She stared at him in surprise, wondering if it was his pride still smarting after all this time, or something else that didn't bear close examination. It was so unlike him to approach this kind of topic head on, it left her momentarily speechless. He filled in the silence for her, stepping back to just in front of her and offering her a healthy measure of the bottle's contents. "I'm sure you had your reasons," he tilted his head to one side surveying her expression. "Why now?"

He pressed the makeshift tumbler into her hand, drawing her attention to his physical closeness. His fingers were warm, briefly touching hers to make sure her grip on the glass was certain, and extracted with military precision. His piercing blue eyes flayed her face, roaming over her pupils spreading until there was almost no green to see, before sliding safely away. She bristled, nostrils flaring. A smile tugged at his lips, inappropriate and unavoidable.

"Does there have to be a why?" she asked quietly, side-stepping the question and slipping her eyes away from his penetrating stare. She trod heavily on the instinct to bolt, recognising the question as an indirect tipping point. What he was saying registered with her as the last opportunity to exit before things got messy. In raking over the coals of the past, he had put their shared history firmly in the frame as a starting point for here on in.

"Nope," he replied, lightly to the point of flippancy. He took a sip, his eyes steadily on her over the rim of his container.

She saluted him ironically, letting the sting of alcohol flood her taste buds and sucking in a breath through clenched teeth, "tastes like battery acid. Where's the good stuff?"

"I wasn't expecting company."

"You're letting your standards slip," she accused.

He took a guarded sip with a glint in his eye before taking her drink off her, as her mouth twisted at the taste, placing both containers together to one side on the counter top.

"Don't be so hard on yourself."

"I didn't mean me!" She growled, feeling her hackles rise. He always did know just how to bait her. The only saving grace was that she could stir him just as readily as he could her.

"I know what you meant," he said mildly, moving to stand in front of her and reaching to link her fingers with his. "Are you done talking at me? Because 'the good stuff' is upstairs."


	2. Chapter 2

A controlled panic set in. She knew it would come to this, but if she was honest with herself, she had anticipated a little more verbal foreplay. He was making this so easy it was giving her chills. Chills that had the small hairs rise along her forearms and a tight feeling in her stomach. There was a punchline coming, she almost taste it, gathering in the air around him like the still before the storm.

"You mean a bed?" She asked, playing for time. This had seemed such a good idea from the ivory tower of her office when she was looking for ways to entice him back on to the team. He had so much to give, and she wanted it, all of it, including now, the parts that she had personally wrapped with yellow tape stamped in big, black, bold letters that read, 'do not cross.'

Her heart hammered painfully fast, tripping and skipping over how this might play out. He would stand back and let her walk up the stairs out of the basement ahead of him, because he always made sure that a man's respect for a woman won out, even if all they were headed for was a roll in the hay. It had thrown her off guard the first time he had gestured her ahead of him and let her lead.

It made her feel precious, she had never lost the feeling of him walking behind her, carrying the surety that he had her back. She had never forgotten how gentle he was that first time, when she was expecting something so very different after the ferocity of the argument that preceded it. She carried it with her always. It was the reason why she never strayed from his memory, not that he would ever know. The time she had allowed to pass with them apart sliced at the fragile membrane of her self-control.

"I meant Jack, but yeah," he paused for emphasis. "There's a bed." He added with a rumble of humour, "I got a TV too." His home accent came out in his vowel sounds when he had been drinking she remembered, in the 'o' sound most of all. She caught the inside of her bottom lip with her teeth to keep from commenting on it, wondering how full the bottle had been when he first got back.

She stood her ground while his eyes searched her face. He had always been good at reading people. It was just one of the tools in his personal arsenal that made him so damn good at his job. He knew exactly when to yell, and when to say please, although the latter was so rare, it was the stuff of legends.

He tilted his head to one side, looking at her out of the corner of his eye and straightened again, as if checking what he could see from the skewed view was still true head on. She watched the corners of his eyes tighten the way she felt hers do the exact same thing, while he tried to work out how many steps ahead she was and how to get in front.

She could feel her shoulders tense as her guard went up. He was a worthy adversary, even when they were working towards the same goal, they had an unerring habit of approaching the same problems from diametrically opposing directions. More often than not, it became a battle of wills.

"You have something against beds," he asked lightly, before destroying the illusion that she might be in control by adding, "Madame Director?"

The address stung so badly, it made her head jerk back. "We're outside of the office," she snarled, feeling her blood rise. The last thing she felt she needed was a reminder of her position of responsibility, not with what she was about to do.

"You're still in that suit," he said shrugging. "Hell if I can tell the difference."

She gave a snort of choked laughter, "is that your way of saying take it off?"

He stepped closer, close enough that she had to look up into his eyes. "In case there was anything lost in transmission," he murmured. She could feel her eyes start to close of their own volition as he lowered his face to hers. There was the barest pressure of his lips on hers. She swallowed the small groan that lodged in the back of her throat at the feel of him, so close and still so far away.

A slight squeeze of his fingers signalled their disentanglement an instant before she registered him reaching for her waist, feeling his way swiftly to splay his fingers either side of the small of her back. He tucked his head into the crook of her neck, while his hands edged down, over the swell of her behind, drawing her body irresistibly closer.

She could feel the warm puff of air against the base of her throat when he spoke quietly with an air of forced surprise. "Well, it's not there."

She turned her face to nestle closer to his, "what's not there?" A bubble of amusement stalled in her chest. This was his playful side, but it was just as dangerous to her as the other, it was a mask for the hard edged killer he had to be in the field. It also helped to hide the shrewd workings of his mind.

Against her neck she felt his lips curve into a sly smile, "knife."

"I'm not a field agent any more, Jethro." His name rolled throatily of her tongue, memories vied to remind her of what he liked, how he would respond if she touched him here or kissed him there. She nudged his face further away from her neck so that she could tease the shell of his ear with the tip of her tongue. He hummed into her skin in response, eventually twisting his face closer to her neck with a grunt and effectively cutting her access off, close enough that she could feel the low rumble of his voice as a tremor against her.

"I don't think," he started, fitting her body to his, although he had to hunch his shoulders to make it work with his head so low, "you'd let that stop you." She swayed with him, away from the sturdy support of the workbench.

"What would stop you?" she asked breathlessly at the way he placed himself deliberately against her. The position made plain that this was no game for him at a physical level. Her hands rose to mimic the placement of his. Over the tooled leather of his belt, her fingers snagged on a metal clip. The sort of clip riveted to the handle of a knife worn flat against the belly, or off centre, inside a waistband around back.

"I don't want to," he said drawled honestly, answering the indirect question with the same words. "So if there is a problem…" He stopped suddenly, as she pointedly traced the outline of the hilt against his body. She deftly separated the knife from his belt and tossed it behind her on the counter top, where it landed with a dull thud. He drew his head back, squinting into her eyes.

"You know what you're doing?" he asked searching for certainty, all amusement gone from his face.

"I don't want to hurt myself," she tried to explain, with more in her voice than just about a knife. "Or you." On a par with his own dual conversation, she added with a lift of her chin. "It's not like you don't have another one in your boot."

He gave her slow smile in reply, "Going to take my boots off too?"

"We don't have to, "she replied archly, reaching for his belt buckle. She watched him draw his lips into his mouth, so that they all but disappeared, and the pink tip of his tongue peeked out for an instant as he wet them.

She pulled the tongue of his belt back against the buckle hard enough to make his stomach cave. He pushed his hips sharply into hers in response, crowding her fingers and what they were trying to do. He placed his hands either side of her face, cupping her jaw and drew her mouth to his. She fumbled with the button at his waistband, slipping it through, feeling his stomach muscles hollow and contract against her touch. His tongue brushed against her lower lip, followed with a gentle nip. She sucked in a breath that was all Gibbs and the scent of sawdust. Talking was over for now.

She closed her eyes and let go. Her fingers stalled on his zipper, derailed by the roar of need sweeping through her body, emanating from his lips moving against hers. Pressing and retreating, sucking and biting to create a vortex of feeling that had her leaning into him before she even realised he was angling back, pulling her off balance. One of his hands swept nimble fingers over the back of her neck and hooked inside her jacket collar, pulling it back and off, down her arms while she struggled to free herself from its suddenly restricting confines. She barely noticed it gone as anything other than a brief annoyance keeping her from running greedy fingers under the edge of his polo shirt and over the warm, firm planes of his back.

Her body traced the path knowing fingers took, down the hollow of her spine, bypassing her skirt fastening to reach awkwardly for her hemline, hitching it up unashamedly exposing her thighs to cooler air.

"Jethro," she growled against his mouth in warning at his finger tips testing the elasticity of her underwear, along the band of fancy lace at the leg and infinitely slower with two fingers hooked inside, across the expanse of her waist. She gave a low squeak when he snapped the barely there fabric back against her skin

"Take them off. Before you have to replace them," he offered hoarsely. "They're wet anyway," he remarked blithely, as if he had nothing to do with it.

She stumbled against him in her haste, dizzy at the way he made her blood pound when all they had done was kiss and touch, and kiss some more. He grunted at her shoulder bumping him square under his rib cage and reached to steady her, using the opportunity to tug her blouse free of the skirt. She retaliated, reaching for where the deep, grey jersey of his briefs showed in the open vee of his pants.

Gibbs reached to push her skirt up again, curling his fingers under to bunch up the material and brush feather light touches across the top of her thighs. He managed to twist the pair of them so that she was astride his legs and he could lean back against the edge of the workbench. Shepard pushed both pants and briefs half way down his thighs in an economical movement, reaching for his straining cock with her right hand and inverting it so her knuckles rubbed against his belly.

His head dropped back with a groan, when she squeezed him gently at the base. His hands worked blindly behind him to grip the edge of the workbench.

"Going to hold on for me, Gunny?"

She watched his adam's apple move as he swallowed convulsively, making the effort to answer. "We should have gone upstairs."

"You used to be able to do it standing up," she reminded him, rubbing the head of his cock in a circular motion with a cupped hand while the other squeezed slowly up his thick shaft.

He grunted in amusement and panted out, "I was younger then."

She leaned in, whispering against his throat, "I'm not complaining." She let her teeth graze against his skin, taking in the familiar taste of him.

"Jen!" he groaned at her squeezing to emphasize her point.

He reached for her hips, snapping his head forward and down to watch her hands manipulate the head of his cock lower, until it was sliding between her legs against hot, slick flesh. She raised herself on tiptoes, angling her hips to allow the tip to sink in and took a shaky breath, closing her eyes at the reminder of how he felt, how they felt together. He shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. She noticed a fraction of a second too late that he had solidified his stance, before the span of his hands had found their way to rest firmly against her ass cheeks and he hoisted her up, over him with a muted grunt.

Her hands scrambled for a grip on his shoulders, feeling how they flexed under her palms, tense and hard while he controlled the descent of her body over him. She let her shoes drop, reaching for the edge of the work top with her toes to lever some of her weight off him, going slowly out of her mind as he filled her. He stared up into her face, his mouth falling open as more of him disappeared inside her. She curled down to kiss him, hard, pressing her mouth and upper body close against his heat.

He was sheathed in her, his body in her body, the scent of them together cocooning the pair of them. She could feel the strain in his legs as a low shudder. His fingers hollowed into what little flesh there was at her hips, digging hard into the bone making tomorrow's bruises. She pushed herself up and away from him, feeling him slide and catch against her inside, catch and release, while her body fluttered on the edge of oblivion. He groaned, deep in the back of his throat, gripping her tighter and pulling his mouth free, pressing his cheek so hard against hers she could feel the muscles in his jaw clench as he hissed in a breath. Panting, the pace of his gasps matched her slow, short movements, squeezing him tighter inside her.

Her eyes were closed, brows drawn close together in concentration, lips barely parted kept repeating a silent litany of his name, using it to burn the image of her over him into his memory. Her hands moved to behind his neck.

He moved one hand up, bracing against her blouse, feeling her undulate under his touch, a lazy ripple of desire feeding desire, to behind her neck, under her hair. She leant her head back against it, elongating her neck and croaking a throaty, "Mmmm."

Air left him in a rush, she had barely changed position, but suddenly he was further in, higher up and the head of his cock was gripped inside her so tight. He gasped, curling his abdomen forward, shaking with the strain.

"Jen," he urged. "Jen!" It was all he could manage, the rest of his vocabulary deserting him.

Her hips shifted forward, seating her hot wetness over his straining body, squeezing the base of his cock. His whole body jerked as his will let go. She froze, startled and suddenly shook, she gasped, shuddering inside. Her arms lost the ability to lock, collapsing her body over his, her face tucked into his neck. Her legs trembled and he dragged her free of the workbench, holding her pressed so tight against the length of him that she could scarcely breathe.

He whispered into the side of her neck, hot and heavy with emotion, "I've missed you, Jen."


	3. Chapter 3

Her legs creased around his body, entirely supported by his arms, while waiting for her breathing to steady and the world to stop spinning. She could feel his ragged breaths against her, through the clothing that remained between them. He nuzzled his nose into her neck, followed by a lingering kiss against her throat.

"I'm going to have to put you down," he purred.

"Ok," she croaked, still breathless, gripping him momentarily tighter and easing her feet to the floor. She winced as his cock slid out from her body. He held her dangling just too high for the tips of her toes to touch the ground while it happened, eventually letting find her feet and separating the pair of them. She shivered involuntarily, unconsciously aware of how much she appreciated the feel of his hard warmth.

Besides, there were more pressing matters once she had got a hold of herself. Stand up sex was all very fine in the moment, but the aftermath left a lot to be desired. Her shoulders flexed in distaste at the feeling of a slow trickle down the inside of her thigh.

She smoothed her skirt automatically and tried to right the clothing that remained. She glanced over to where he leant against the edge of the workbench, tucking himself swiftly back into his briefs and closing his pants. He held the knife she had removed from his person gripped in his teeth. If it wasn't for the mess she had made of his hair and the flush of passion on his cheeks he could have been anywhere, doing anything at all. She decided she hated his beard more than anything else because it made him more difficult to read than she remembered.

It seemed manifestly unfair that she would come out of this breathless and shaking, whereas he, on the other hand, would make the whole thing look like a walk in the park. It made her _want_ to needle him, to break that immutable calm down into a more visceral response.

The muscles in her neck tightened, preparing for a fight. It had always been this way between them. Distance and time had done nothing to soften the edges of how he made her feel, whatever she told herself. She looked down at the hopeless state of her clothing and did the worst thing she could think of. She turned her back on him.

"This was a bad idea," she whispered, hoping he would hear and let her go before they fought and she would have to leave anyway. It would leave things open ended. He would hate it and come to the office tomorrow, where they would talk as sober, civilised adults. Her mouth twisted at the obvious lie. Whatever there was between them, even now, wasn't going to be resolved in her office. The office was where it spilled over, because the checks and balances they both needed could not possibly be displayed in front of the peanut gallery. She bit savagely at the inside of her cheek, cursing her stupidity for ever thinking this was a sensible course of action.

Her toes found her shoes, dragged them upright and slipped them on. She felt herself reconstructing her inalienable calm. In forcing her posture to change she could feel her habitual armour resurrect itself. The woman inside, that craved Leroy Jethro Gibbs as a lover, shrank away from the edges. She mourned its retreat like the death of an old friend.

"No," he murmured immediately behind her. His hands appeared as a gentle pressure at her waist drifting forward to smooth over her belly and working up, towards her breasts. She clasped her hands over his, pressing them against her body. She half expected him to spread his fingers and let her in, but he didn't. She closed her eyes, mentally preparing herself. His hands retreated, sweeping up her back instead and hooking his fingers over her shoulders.

"It wasn't," his voice was quiet but even. His warmth seeped into the rigidity of her back, burrowing into the cold divide she tried to put between them. He ran his nose down the back of her neck and kissed the base of her neck, leaving his mouth pressed against her skin.

"Want me to say please?" She could feel his lips stretch over the 'please' like a cartoon character would say it, exaggerated and irreverent. He was so close, she could feel the instant that he closed his eyes. What she couldn't see, but knew would come next, was the way he would squeeze them tight shut, so that there would be nothing but blackness behind the lids. It broke her heart.

She breathed slow and even, holding herself rigidly in his embrace. Tears pricked uncomfortably behind her eyes. What he hadn't said was '_come upstairs and clean up,'_ but that was what he meant. It didn't mean stay the night. It didn't mean the situation was open, or closed or anything other than a barely healed wound with years of scar tissue holding it together.

"No." 'Y_ou don't have to say please.'_

She felt his lips replaced by his forehead at the base of her neck as he put some distance between their bodies, peeling her fragile armour with it. He used a forefinger to snap her bra strap briefly. "Nice carry."

Shepard scowled. He must have felt the holster snapped to the centre of her bra. The way it worked meant that a knife could sit nestled in the hollow of her cleavage. If she thought about it, it was impossible for him not to, with what they had been up to. Gibbs sauntered around her, catching her eye and keeping her attention by walking backwards to the bottom of the stairs. He tilted his head towards the open door at the top when he got there, clearly waiting for her to go ahead of him.

She lifted her chin and reached for her discarded jacket, sweeping it off the floor with an irritated flourish. "Remind me to pass you my dry cleaning bill."

She got a low chuckle in return and he shifted his weight, still waiting, patiently impatient for her to come to him.

A/N: Thank you for reading – and for those of you who stopped to say 'hi', it was lovely hearing from you.


	4. Epi

From a distance, the look on his face resembled nothing less than a mild amusement at her expense. It was better than indifference she admitted, but rankled nonetheless. He carried no outward strain from treading the same razor's edge of this relationship that she did. He didn't deserve to, she reasoned, it was enough that she was looking over both their shoulders. A curl of unease stirred in her stomach. Open door, locked door, it wouldn't matter come the time. She knew with a cold certainty that Svetlana would never let this drop, not since Shepard had found out what the link was between the mark she left alive and the kill Gibbs had made in the backwaters of Paris, City of Lovers.

Her nostrils flared, taking in the taint in the air. What would she feel like, she forced herself to consider, if Gibbs were taken from her. She knew, under the same circumstances, she would extract the proper vengeance, even if it took an age to do so.

He shifted again in her periphery, while she searched briefly for her missing underwear.

"I don't got all day," he drawled testily. His keen eyes traced her head to toe, lingering on her waist.

"Am I keeping you from something?" she asked archly with one last disgusted look at her surroundings. It wasn't like there were that many places for a pair of panties to get themselves lost. She narrowed her eyes at him, suspicion clouding her thoughts.

"Jack. Bed," he reeled off. "You," he added laconically.

She paced slowly towards him, watching his chin rise the closer she approached. "Keeping my underwear doesn't mean I'm staying," she stated, wishing she felt as determined as she sounded. The pitfalls of sharing the night with him yawned ahead of her. There would be no sleeping, she thought, not in the restful sense anyway, then frowned. Staying was not in the plan. Her plan at least. Goosebumps crept over her upper back. The back and forth felt like a storm brewing, the worst kind, that started with a warm breath of air and grew into a towering thunderhead in no time at all.

He gave her a one shouldered shrug. "Where's your car keys, I'll get your bag." From the light in his eyes and the way he held his head to one side, she felt as if he could hear all the arguments she was having with herself about staying. Handing over her keys would feel like cutting off her legs, and she couldn't bear to be without an exit strategy. If she said yes, he won. If she said no, she lost, and she really did want to clean up.

She shortened her steps, drawing out the time it took for her to reach him. She scanned his face, trying in vain to work out what he would gain from keeping her from her own bed. Sex. Company. _Sex. Winning._

"I don't want you in my car."

"I don't want you in your car. I got a perfectly good bed."

She tried again, in her most reasonable voice. Her stomach tightened, traitorous nipples hardening while her body followed its own version of the evening's trajectory from this point on. "Jethro, this isn't a good idea."

"Because you don't carry spare underwear in your overnight?"

"Because I don't carry spare spark plugs in my overnight."

He threw his head back so she could barely see the smile erupt on his face.

"I won't take your plugs," and she knew every word of it was a lie. He knew it too, she saw it from the way he curved his bottom lip into his mouth, just shy of biting it or saying something he didn't mean to share. His eyebrows twitched upwards, the right one staying angled higher than its brethren.

She stopped in front of him and put her hands on her hips. "You know where I keep them." They were in her purse at the top of the stair. She could go straight to the bathroom, he wouldn't miss it. "You know where to put them back, too. Just the bag, Jethro," she warned.

He jerked his chin in recognition, eyes twinkling in delight and swung his eyes left, up the stairs. She took one step and then another, feeling him shadow her close behind. Without slowing she reminded him loftily, "I mean it."

His arms came around her without warning, trapping her arms tight against her body and planting a swift kiss on the side of her neck, before releasing them just as fast. In a voice she recognised from a Parisian bedroom from another time, in another world, he replied, "so do I."

..][..

Her cell woke them in the morning while it was still dark. Gibbs sat up, drew back the covers without so much a glance in her direction and padded downstairs. When she followed a few minutes later he was already gone, leaving her a thick, black coffee in a travel mug and a toasted bagel on the breakfast bar in the kitchen.

She spun slowly in the empty space, still wearing only an over sized grey tee shirt with the letters NIS picked out in navy blue on the front. There was no sign that he had had anything at all. There was barely any sign that anyone even lived here. She folded her arms tight against her body, suddenly cold having been so warm in his embrace all night.

Shepard retraced her steps upstairs to the bedroom. Her cell ringing suddenly in the silence made her start. The lit screen flashed up the one word she half hoped it wouldn't. 'Gibbs'. She snatched it up, half way between annoyance and relief. Over the sound of rubber soles thumping rhythmically on tarmac, his low growl cut through, sounding barely out of breath.

"You can take mine," he paused. "Keys are in the desk drawer."

"Jethro," she said, as if speaking to a particularly aggravating child. "What's wrong with mine?"

"It's in the basement," he said, in his best '_obviously'_ tone

"What is?"

"You'll know it when you see it."

Shepard drew in a breath to snap at him, when she let it out in a rush. The bastard had already hung up. She pursed her lips and headed for the bathroom.

When she made it downstairs for the second time and stuck her head over the handrail into the basement, flipping on the lights, she was greeted with the sight of her disembodied steering wheel. A crowbar lay innocently beside it. Her lips flattened into a thin line as she made a call.

"I need a tow truck. Now." The cell flipped shut in her hand with loud snap.

In between pacing, swearing vengance and silent fuming, it took a while for what he was doing to sink in. It didn't alleviate her annoyance in the least, but it did mean that he was heading for the office and the job that went with it.

A/N Bonus epi :)


End file.
